I’ve just wrapped up a wonderful time in Portugal, actually authoring this from the the air above the Atlantic as I return to Colorado. I travelled to Lisbon last week for LXJS and was then joined by my wife and spent the rest of our time along the southern coast in Lagos. It was absolutely beautiful.
The Conference
LXJS was refreshing. It’s been quite a while since I ventured outside of the United States and the first time for any type of technical conference. I was most surprised and impressed by the diversity of the people I met, including those from the Portugal, UK, US, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Netherlands and China. I had many interesting conversations about technology, travel, politics, leadership, family, wine and food.
The two day event was held at a cinema with fantastic character and architecture and a gigantic stage and screen. It was a magical setting that reaffirmed my affinity for the single track conference. The entire crew of organizers, Nuno, David Dias, Ana, Pedro and others were amazing. They created an authentic, down to earth, community experience. As a speaker I appreciated all of the support and preparation leading up to and during the event, addressing all sorts of details, allowing the speakers to focus on their talks.
My only legitimate complaint was the house projector used the first day was horribly blurred and ghosted. After significant behind the scenes scrambling and a heroic effort, this was rectified on the following day with a new projector. Unfortunately these things happen, but the team rallied. Another standout observation was the quality of the video production of the live stream and how the videos were literally cut and published in realtime. Fabulous job by ACA.
I sincerely hope I can return next year, whether as a speaker or not. I guess that’s the true litmus test. Would I return? Absolutely.
My Talk
This was my first time speaking internationally, and I admittedly was a bit nervous. I felt this overwhelming obligation to do my best and not waste people’s time. Honestly I was most worried about the 20 minute time slot; let’s just say if there was ever a “rambler’s anonymous” group, I would be a charter member! However, it forced me to be critical about the content of my talk- what was essential and what had to be cut. If nothing else I was focused on being a good steward of the time I had been given.
My talk was about a continuous delivery system (for lack of a better term) that we built at Pearson called Thalassa. It’s basically a service registry, dashboard and a service that dynamically configures and controls HAProxy instances. It makes it easier to automate no downtime, A/B style deployments. BIG thanks to my employer Pearson for supporting this project and LXJS, paying all of my travel costs.
The projects are on Github and published to NPM and below is the recording of my presentation and here are the slides. I welcome any and all feedback so please don’t hold back.
Homeward Bound
I thoroughly enjoyed Portugal. Lisbon was full of charm, character and history and the beaches near Lagos were breathtaking. I’ll simply leave you with a few photographs…
Lisbon
Lisbon
Lisbon
Lagos
Lagos
Lagos